After our interrupted Baltic cruise in 2003, we looked for a replacement cruise for 2004. There were several European cruises on our short list, but the maiden British Isles / Norwegian Fjords cruise of the Royal Caribbean Cruiseline's new ship, Jewel of the Seas, soon found its way to the top of our list.

While researching the various cruises, we found a Cruise Critic Roll Call thread for the June 21st Jewel of the Seas sailing. (Note: this is not the original thread - Cruise Critic did an upgrade and the original thread was deleted. This is the thread following the cruise. It has information about our cruise.)

This group of cruise enthusiasts had even started their own Fmary Meet & Mingle web page. This definitely factored into our decision process. Thanks to Mary, who created the Meet & Mingle website, we even had a photographic history of the Builiding of the Jewel OTS. The Jewel OTS came out of the Meyer Werft dock on March 13, 2004. Click here for the first pictures, taken in Germany, of this wonderful new ship.

Another one of the reasons we choose this cruise was that we'd have another opportunity to sail from the London area. We really love spending time in London prior to our cruises. There's so much to see and do there, and of course there's the pubs with fish n' chips and local brews. The picture to the left was taken at the Tower of London last year.

Click on the Date in the table below for a planning page for that day. The planning pages were created in MS Excel. You can download to your PC by doing a right mouse click and doing a "save target as" (IE). Note: some of the port links may not be currently active (depending on if RCCL has a current cruise stopping in that port).